In a 40-year span, she has served in just about every capacity of the Mississippi education system. Now, the Columbus Municipal School District’s venerable board of trustees vice president, Alma Turner, is relinquishing her role on the board, leaving a void her colleagues say will be difficult to fill.
Turner, who has served on the board since March 2004, hand-delivered her resignation to Columbus Mayor Robert Smith’s office earlier in the month, citing health issues, CMSD Board President Glenn Lautzenhiser confirmed Monday. Turner’s five-year, City Council-appointed tenure was slated to end March 2, 2014.
“I’ve enjoyed my tenure on the school board, and I did my utmost to make sure the educational needs of the children were met,” Turner said Tuesday morning. “… I’m proud of the accomplishments of the district. We have a great board, a great community, and I personally enjoyed working with the school board members to serve the district. It’s not that I’m leaving forever. I just want, for health reasons, to resign.”
Turner, a native of Utica, has held numerous positions, including serving as a teacher and principal at the Demonstration School, assistant superintendent of the West Point School District and regional director of the Institute of Community Services Head Start Program. She also served as a board member for the United Way of Lowndes County.
She will be most remembered for her passion for children and the gracious, calm demeanor she brought to her endeavors, said fellow CMSD board member Bruce Hanson, who called her “a true leader” and “a true friend.”
“She has been well-liked by everybody I ever met …” Hanson said. “The best thing about her is her demeanor, her graciousness, the way she gets the job done without fanfare and bluster but rather as a gentle person who, at the same time, has a great grasp of what needs to be done and goes about it in such a graceful manner.”
No matter how hard things became, Turner never wavered in her support for education, he said.
“No matter what the issue, no matter how difficult it was … she’s always had this graciousness about her,” he continued. “At the same time, I could see a thread. Her drive was to do everything possible for educating children. Throughout this wonderful, gracious personality, she had this toughness about her to drive through and make things happen.”
Lautzenhiser called Turner an “exemplary school board member” with “a heart for public education.”
“She’s going to be sorely missed,” Lautzenhiser said. “It’s a great loss; there’s no question about that.”
‘A tempering force’
Turner served as a role model, for adults as well as for the children under her tutelage.
Hanson said watching her in action made him “act accordingly,” resisting the urge to respond to stressful situations with anger or frustration.
“She was a tempering force on me,” Hanson said. “She and I got along so well together … She’s just a wonderful woman.”
That ability to inspire people of all ages to become more — better — than they ever thought possible, was part of what drove Demonstration School to set a new bar for public education, said Qua Austin, who served as Parent Teacher Association president and had three children attend the school.
The children and the parents loved Turner so much, they were inspired to surmount all sorts of obstacles, from the minuscule to the far-reaching, Austin said.
When Austin’s daughter, Jessica Austin, was young, her love for reading often made her, as well as her siblings, late for school. Turner’s solution? She asked the avid reader to help her gather the mail each morning. Suddenly, instead of dawdling, wasting time daydreaming and reading, she quickly dressed, eager to go to school and take her place by Turner’s side.
Austin saw a similar transformation among the parents at the first PTA meeting. Turner came armed with sheets of paper for parents to join committees, and suddenly people were signing up to plant bushes, scrub bathrooms, paint the school. No one minded the work, because it was for the children they loved and for the principal who loved them.
“We had 99 percent parental participation and support,” Austin said. “I’m not kidding. It was just amazing. And people knew that when they came to volunteer, they were appreciated. I don’t know of anybody who ever told her ‘no’ or told us ‘no’ as a PTA. … It’s like nothing I have ever seen before.”
Turner didn’t lead by swagger or force; she led by quiet example, and in doing so, became a force to be reckoned with.
Austin recalled being amazed every time she watched Turner walk into a room of rowdy students and invoke instant calm with just a few quiet words: “Let’s be role models.”
“There’d be this hush,” Austin said. “She had an amazing way of creating calmness and discipline but always encouraging great self-esteem.”
An enduring legacy
Perhaps Turner’s most telling legacy can be seen throughout the community, in the faces and works of the students she shaped, who became not just thinkers but doers, not just followers but leaders.
“There are tons of kids around town who have been successful under Mrs. Turner’s tutelage,” Austin said. “When I think about what helped make my children’s lives successful, Mrs. Turner comes first. She has left a mark on this community.”
Local attorney Scott Colom is one of those Demonstration School students who grew up to be heavily involved in the community, a fact he attributes at least in part to Turner’s influence.
Through her, Colom said Tuesday evening, he learned how to effectively use “soft power” to effect desired change.
She was stern without being a harsh disciplinarian, he said. She kept a sharp focus on the priorities but she also maintained a clear view of the big picture of what was going on with each individual child.
Colom doesn’t remember exactly what she said to him on the times he landed in her office for talking in class or not paying attention. But he will never forget the effect.
“I don’t know how she did it,” Colom said. “You never wanted to disappoint Mrs. Turner. And I still don’t.”
Carmen K. Sisson is the former news editor at The Dispatch.
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